[tt] LRC: Per Bylund: The War on Terrorism Brings Mass Surveillance--In Sweden

Fri Aug 22 09:17:23 UTC 2008

Per Bylund: The War on Terrorism Brings Mass Surveillance--In Sweden
http://www.lewrockwell.com/bylund/bylund25.html
8.8.16

On June 18 a new law was passed in Sweden granting the national
defenses civilian agency [9]National Defence Radio Establishment
(FRA) the right to collect and analyze all communication data that
in some way passes the borders of the Kingdom of Sweden. As a small
country with extensive government and business collaboration with
the other Nordic countries, most domestic communication such as
Internet and phone services at some point passes the national
border. The real effect of the law, which mandates that
communication corporations deliver all their border-passing data
directly to the FRA, is therefore mass surveillance of the whole
Swedish populace.

The official lie offered as excuse for this horrid, uncivilized law
is, like in all other countries, the threat of terrorism. It is
unlikely anyone actually believes Sweden, an insignificant socialist
country in the far north in [10]moral, financial, and political
decline, is on the terrorists list of future targets, yet the sense
of a common external threat of a faceless enemy seems to be as
effective in Sweden as elsewhere.

The law, which officially is called [11]proposition 2006/07:63 An
Adapted Military Intelligence, was passed under rather strange
circumstances that only make sense in a political world. The law was
originally formulated a few years ago by the former social
democratic government and was then strongly criticized by the four
so-called non-socialist parties in parliament. It was, however, not
brought to the floor of parliament for enactment by the social
democratic party (for fear of losing the election?), but by the
succeeding non-socialist four-party coalition government after the
social democratic party lost power in the general elections in 2006.
Also, the new coalition government parties voted in favor of the law
while the social democrats and their lackey parties The Left Party
(formerly known as the communist party) and The Environment Party
voted against it.

The debate leading up to the passing of the law in June 2008 just
before the parliaments summer leave was quite hostile, especially
after non-socialist bloggers started analyzing the effects of the
law and bringing the truth to unknowing voters. The media kept their
mouths shut for as long as possible, but as the bloggers wouldnt
stop they managed to create enormous public pressure on politicians.
The prime minister and his government responded by forcing "their"
members of parliament to shut up and vote in accordance with their
governments proposition even though it could be interpreted as
conflicting with the parties political platforms, promises, and
programs.

With their political careers literally on the line, only a handful
of politicians had the courage to criticize the proposition
beforehand even though all of the discussions took place behind
locked doors. All but one agreed on voting in favor of the bill or
being absent from this particular vote, while only four votes of the
349 in parliament would have been enough to throw the bill out.

As is common practice in Sweden a new law is referred for
consideration to major government agencies, big business
corporations and labor unions for comments before brought to a vote.
Basically any organization has the right to comment on a law and the
government has to register the comments in a publicly accessible
archive of comments, which is often used by the media. The comments
on this law were very skeptical and a number of agencies and
departments, among them the Swedish security police (SÄPO), claimed
the law shouldnt be passed due to its total lack of restraints on
FRAs surveillance activities as well as safeguards for peoples
personal integrity (!). Despite such devastating comments the bill
was proposed to parliament by the non-socialist government while the
media basically remained silent.

But a number of Swedish bloggers and free-lance writers, mainly
libertarian or semi-libertarian such, continued online discussions
on the "FRA Bill" (often referred to as "[12]Lex Orwell") on blogs
and elsewhere and during these discussions a number of interesting
facts surfaced. The military agency FRA, which up to this point had
only had the right to spy on radio communication crossing borders,
with the main (but not explicitly stated) purpose to spy on Soviet
Russia for the United States federal government, had already acted
as a domestic surveillance agency despite it being illegal. The
agencys actions were reported to the police, but the attorney
general almost immediately dismissed the case despite obvious and
severe crimes.

After the bill was passed a number of politicians in the
non-socialist parties reacted to the public pressure in the way
politicians often do: a number of them publicly stated their
opposition to the bill they had recently voted in favor of and
created "anti-FRA" political networks to bring the bill to the floor
again and this time make sure it doesnt pass. And the social
democrats, who were the ones writing the law in the first place,
vowed to discard of the law if elected in the 2010 elections.

Despite these pathetic political attempts to benefit from the public
awareness of the law, the discussions on blogs and in non-mainstream
media go on. More strange circumstances and illegal acts by the
agency are reported almost daily on numerous blogs while the main
media corporations seem obviously afraid to touch this issue despite
the fact that this surveillance would severely affect news reporting
as well as other businesses and individuals.

A [13]list of 103 Swedish citizens that the FRA has previously
reported to the security police was published by blogger [14]Henrik
Alexandersson (his English blog [15]here) in an attempt to show that
the FRA has not worked within the law historically and therefore
will not do so in the future. Alexandersson, who is also the
chairman of the libertarian activist network [16]Frihetsfronten
(Freedom Front) is now being investigated by the police for the
crime of espionage (!) for publishing the list in conflict with
freedom of speech laws. He was reported to the police by the
director of the FRA, Ingvar Åkesson, and while the report includes a
number of interesting pieces of information implying illegal
activities by the FRA neither the media nor the police pretend to
have noticed.

It seems despite the protests and the increasing public pressure the
law will come into effect on October 1 this year. The law is however
only one in a line of new laws calling for mass surveillance of
ordinary people in Sweden and all over Europe. The European Union is
[17]calling for mass surveillance on the super-national level
through national data retention laws; one such law, which calls for
mandatory storage of all phone call, text message and email data
(including peoples whereabouts, etc., but not contents of call or
message) in Sweden will be brought to the floor of the Swedish
parliament during the fall session of this year.

In addition to these laws the so-called ACTA treaty, following the
lead from the Department of Homeland Security but to counter
"illegal file-sharing," was approved by the EU member states in a
session on agriculture and fishing policy (!) on May 14 and is
currently negotiated by the European Commission. The treaty grants
border security to confiscate any digital media carried by the
traveler and outlaws certain digital equipment as well as
file-sharing networks (even if legal).

Most of these Orwellian laws are part of a new "anti-terrorism"
initiative in the European Union, where a new union-level situation
center in Brussels, called SitCen, is proposed in order to
coordinate the EU countries national security police, intelligence
and surveillance efforts. With laws such as the "FRA Bill" and the
proposed communications data storage law to be passed this fall it
is easy to see that the European Union intends to be the first to
establish a full-scale police state on the super-national level.

Decisions in the European Union are often made behind locked doors
by EU-appointed officials to whom the national governments have
"delegated" powers. In other words, it is impossible to know the
true extent of the measures proposed and already enacted. Unpopular
laws that rapidly increase the powers of member states are often
pushed to the EU level in order to avoid public debate, and while
national decisions are pushed to this higher level the EU officials
in charge make sure the decisions benefit the political institutions
on the super-national level as well.

This supposedly new EU [18]initiative aiming "to tackle terrorism,
organised crime, and legal and illegal immigration" is likely to be
the result of such political tactics. Politicians in the member
states dont dare face voters and the media with such far-reaching
surveillance propositions and therefore hide behind locked doors in
Brussels. The reason this issue, first and foremost the FRA Bill, is
pushed hard by the Swedish government, and primarily by prime
minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (a spineless crook of whom I have
personal experience), has been conjectured by Henrik Alexandersson:
Sweden under Reinfeldt will be "chairman state" in the EU in the
last six months of 2009 and obviously the prime minister wants to
look good in the eyes of other European politicians.

And how do you look good in the eyes of politicians? Through pushing
your own serfs harder than anyone else pushes theirs.

Per Bylund [[19]send him mail] is a Ph.D. student in economics at
the University of Missouri and the founder of [20]Anarchism.net.
Visit his website [21]www.PerBylund.com or his [22]blog where he
comments on this article and more.

[23]Per Bylund Archives

References

9. http://www.fra.se/english.shtml
10. http://mises.org/story/2190
11. http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/108/a/47685
12. http://yes2privacy.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/sweden-lex-orwell/
13. 
http://henrikalexandersson.blogspot.com/2008/07/fra-103-avlyssnade-svenskar.html
14. http://www.henrik-alexandersson.se/
15. http://www.theembeddedcitizen.com/
16. http://www.frihetsfronten.se/english.html
17. http://euobserver.com/9/19909
18. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/07/eu.uksecurity
19. mailto:per at anarchism.net
20. http://www.anarchism.net/
21. http://www.PerBylund.com/
22. http://www.perbylund.com/blog/
23. http://www.lewrockwell.com/bylund/bylund-arch.html